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Cambridge Coincidences Collection

Professor David Spiegelhalter of Cambridge University wants to know about your coincidences!

Over 10 years ago in Brighton, a friend of mine put me in touch with mutual friend of hers to do some music together. She was a singer, and I played and wrote music a lot at the time. So I phoned her, and we talked for ages on the phone, got really excited by mutual interests, made all these half plans, then of course - did not nothing about it.
I also worked at the time for a Swedish company and travelled at strange times to and from Stockholm.

I lived in a house in Buntingford and found that my front door key (yale type) fitted a cupboard door in a power station in Romania where I was working when I needed to get some technical supplies for which the keys weren't available

I remember watching the TV series "On the buses" as a kid with my dad, we loved it.
For some reason on 16th Nov 2008, I recalled this memory and pondered about Reg Varney and wondered what had become of him since that series. Later, I was rather surprised to discover that he had died that very day ...

We were having a family holiday in the Algarve when the children were young and whilst sunbathing topless on the beach decided to cool off in the sea. As I was walking towards to water I heard a voice say 'hello Mrs R'. I looked up and saw it was my milkman and he wasn't looking at my face!

My son was travelling round the world in 2006 and one day rang me up from a hostel in New Zealand. After 20 minutes or so of conversation I casually picked up a book from a bookshelf and at the same time thought I would ask if he had had a chance to read anything on his travels. He replied that he had been at the hostel for a few days and had been reading a certain book from their stock of books. It was exactly the same book that I had casually selected from my bookshelf!

Some years ago, I dreamt that my boss, who was well in her 40's, got married. I told her the next day. She laughed telling me that she had nobody in her life.
Two months later she told me she had met this wonderful man and they were getting married.

I was visiting South Africa and took an excursion to Cape Point which included a boat trip to Seal Island. On the boat I was standing and seated in front of me was an American Lady of advanced years holding a young dark haired boy of about 2 years. The woman seated beside her commented what a lovely grandson. The American woman explained that she lIved in Brasilia and had adopted the child. I intervened in their conversation and said I have friends in Brasilia who have also adopted a child, their names are Ciro......she said not Ciro and Nicky A. They are my best friends!

Susan and I were best friends at school, saw each other at lot socially (we noticed our thoughts/ideas coinciding enough to think we had something special going on).
We attended each others wedding (and I moved to a different county) and hadn't seen each other since.
Then we each fell pregnant with our first child, and discovered they were both due on the same day: 28th November 1990 - and were born on consecutive days.

I trained as a nurse in SCARBOROUGH, North Yorkshire. While I was there my half sister who I did not know existed at that time went there on her honeymoon. Later in life I "discovered" her existance and traced her to SCARBOROUGH in Ontario, Canada. Much later I met my husband in Tobago and we got married in SCARBOROUGH, Tobago.

On 26 December 2011 we flew from London to Montreal with some friends. The friends had arranged to hire a large 4 wheel drive vehicle. Due to the busy holiday period the car rental company had very few cars available and nothing in the class of car booked. They were given a smaller vehicle, but couldn't fit all their luggage in it. So, they rejected it and waited whilst the hire company found another vehicle that was larger. We then all travelled approximately 120km north to our accommodation near Mont Tremblant, Quebec.